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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22668907">if I could but know her heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkabootle/pseuds/kitnkabootle'>kitnkabootle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Anne with an E (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:40:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,184</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22668907</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkabootle/pseuds/kitnkabootle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Muriel's feelings for Marilla trespass from friendship into romance and she's never been one to deny the workings of her heart.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Marilla Cuthbert/Muriel Stacy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>if I could but know her heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Listen, I love Geraldine James's portrayal of Marilla and even though I was a Ms. Stacy snob before watching Anne with an E, I have grown to love the actress who plays her as well. Their chemistry through Series 2 and 3 is divine and while I know this pairing won't exist anywhere beyond our imaginations, I think I can have Anne Shirley levels of imagining all on my own.</p><p>I hope you enjoy. Please comment if you read it because I'd love to know there are others out there.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On Saturdays, after her long afternoon walks, Muriel Stacy likes to stop and smell the flowers that line the red roads of Avonlea. Sometimes she’s tempted to clip the colorful blossoms and fashion them into fragrant nosegays to wear pinned to her blouses during the week, but even as her fingers caress the petals, she can never bring herself to pluck even one. She can’t bear to see a flower wilt and dry out in a vase or pinned to her clothing, prefers to watch it die as it once grew, its petals dropping and disintegrating back into the earth the way it came, a whole life lived, fed by its roots and nourished by the soil it sprouted from.</p><p><em>How unlike me,</em> she muses.</p><p>Before she came to Avonlea, she never stayed anywhere too long. She married her husband, a dear man who understood her and shared her desire to move about the country, but after he died, the freedom of traveling and starting again, lost its romance. Now she can’t imagine ever leaving the cliffs and valleys of Prince Edward Island, nor the people who live within it.</p><p>She can see Green Gables in the distance, near to where the road curves off and heads in the direction of her house. It always looks so beautiful, welcoming — which she knows is likely from how she felt while working in the barn on the printing press with Matthew, or taking tea on one occasion at the kitchen table with Marilla. If there are finer people than the Cuthberts in all of Avonlea, she’s not yet met them. And there’s more to it than the way they accepted so readily and wholeheartedly as soon as they met.</p><p>Matthew, in his few words, has always stricken Muriel as someone who cares so deeply about others that it comes across as loud as if it were shouted from every rooftop or rung like a church-bell to its congregation. He says it in actions, which have always mattered more than words, always ready to offer himself where needed — even so foolishly at the town dance when Muriel had begged him to dance with her to avoid whatever unsuited partner Rachel had been lining up.</p><p>And there was little Miss Anne Shirley-Cuthbert who wasn’t so very little anymore, who was growing reedy and tall and the picture of a young lady, not unlike herself at the age — starved for knowledge and completely void of forethought. Misadventure had become synonymous with the girl’s name, and yet her heart always beat exactly in the right place. If she made a decision, she could back it up with reasoning, even if the reasoning wasn’t quite fully rationalized. That would come with age and experience. But for now, dear sweet Anne was a blessing, a gift, a pupil a teacher could be proud of helping shape into the person they would become.</p><p>And then there is Marilla. Muriel feels the smile spread at her mouth the moment she thinks of the older woman. The supportive sister, the adoptive mother, the friend to whomever takes the time and care to get to know her. Muriel remembers, fondly, the time Marilla sat in her schoolroom and watched as they made electricity. She remembers the way she stood up to the other mothers and helped change their hasty opinion of her. She remembers the time she’d come upon Marilla in the general store, Bash’s baby crying in her swaddling clothes and Marilla crying into her shoulder from sheer exhaustion. Perhaps most fondly of all, she recalls sitting in Anne’s little wooden shack in the woods, Marilla at her side, sharing tender smiles at the sheer beauty and wonder of youth</p><p>Perhaps it’s this bit of musing that leads Muriel away from the bend in the road towards home and instead along the path up to Green Gables. She walks the length of the white fence, and lifts the small horseshoe holding the gate in place. There isn’t a sound of activity outside, no hammering in the barn, no scratching rakes from the hay loft. She almost contemplates heading back to her home, but something leads her up the steps onto the porch and makes her knock several times at the door.</p><p>The door gives way under her hand, having not been properly latched, and it creaks open. This unnerves her, filling Muriel with a sudden unshakable concern. She takes a furtive step inside the home, glancing towards the kitchen. There’s a sound inside, like rain on a tin roof, and Muriel creeps forward towards it, still with a clear path to the door if she were to find herself faced with intruders. But she doesn’t find an intruder. She pauses just by the doorway, keeping slightly out of view.</p><p>Marilla is standing over a wooden basin, pouring a bucket of water over the back of her head. She lifts a bar of soap and slicks it between her hands before running them through her hair, working them into a lather. Muriel is transfixed by what she sees. It’s such a common thing, to wash one's hair, but to Muriel, watching Marilla do so, seems very intimate. She watches the woman’s fingers thread through each strand, from her scalp where her hair is white at the temples and roots, down to the dark ends. She wonders how long it will be before Marilla’s hair is snow-white in its entirety. She imagines it would suit her. Muriel notices then, as Marilla rinses her hair with fresh water from the bucket and rings out the length of it, that her blouse is unbuttoned to the waist, her simple corset showing below and a loose chemise clings to the curve of her breast above its border, transparent from the water that saturates it.</p><p>She can feel her cheeks growing hot and she steps back to give the other woman some privacy, wordlessly prepared to return another time, only she runs into Anne at the doorway.</p><p>“Ms. Stacy? Oh my goodness, how splendid to have you here!”</p><p>The redhead grins excitedly and she hurries over to embrace her. Muriel smiles and pats Anne’s back, as she releases her, “Yes! I came to … check on you actually to see how you were coming with… the assignment I gave you.”</p><p>Muriel knows the excuse is hardly an impressive one but it will do for now. Besides Anne hardly cares why she’s in her home but instead just seems ecstatic to have her there.</p><p>“Oh well I’m almost done with it! Would you do me the honor of reading it for me? I know you might not think it quite answers the question about how chickens develop from the egg, but I think you can appreciate just how important it is to tell the chicken’s story itself and why she chooses to have the eggs at all in the first place which I think is a really compelling question to answer don’t you?”</p><p>But Muriel can hardly answer the question for Anne is already bounding up the stairs to run and find her essay. Muriel can’t help but chuckle softly to herself as she adjusts a button on the sleeve of her blouse, awaiting her return.</p><p>Marilla comes around the corner into the kitchen then, her hair still down and wet, but it looks as though after having heard Anne come in and speak with her, she’s hastily fashioned it into a long braid and done up her shirtwaist right back to her throat. Muriel is glad of this, if nothing else. She feels the blush still in her cheeks.</p><p>“Ms. Stacy, what a pleasant surprise,” Marilla’s hands fidget with her damp hair, self consciously, “I hope you’ll forgive my appearance, I didn’t expect visitors this afternoon.”</p><p>“Oh Ms. Cuthbert, it is me you must forgive. I came by to see how Anne was doing with her philosophical essay and I should have inquired if it would be a good time.”</p><p>“Fiddlesticks! You’re always welcome in our home. Please sit and make yourself comfortable. I will just finish getting myself together and then I can make you a cup of tea while you work with Anne.”</p><p>Muriel does as instructed and takes a seat at the kitchen table. Marilla’s footsteps soften as she disappears up the stairs and Muriel finds herself daydreaming of water droplets on freckled skin and rivers flowing through chestnut colored waves.</p><p>—</p><p>“I’m impressed!” Muriel smiles when she sets down Anne’s essay and is rewarded with the largest, brightest grin she may have ever seen directed at her. Anne reaches out and snaps the paper back into her hands, looking over her own work.</p><p>“Do you really think so Ms. Stacy?”</p><p>Muriel nods gently.</p><p>“It is clear you’ve thought through both the question and your answer and have come to a very logical conclusion. There are some grammatical errors but that’s nothing that can’t be corrected when we look at the essays in class. I believe I will read yours out as an example, if you’re comfortable with that.”</p><p>“Oh Ms. Stacy! That would be so wonderful and it would remain in the very top of my most fond memories. I have no doubt I will remember such a moment for the rest of my life in its entirety.”</p><p>Muriel can’t help but laugh softly at Anne’s jubilation.</p><p>“Marilla did you hear that? Did you hear Ms. Stacy will read my essay in front of the whole class?”</p><p>Marilla sets an empty tea cup and saucer before Muriel first, then another nearby.</p><p>“Being that I’m in the same room and I’ve not gone deaf quite yet, yes I did hear this exciting news.”</p><p>Muriel shares a look with Marilla, her expression a mixture of pride and exasperation which Muriel is sure has been a constant on the woman’s face ever since Anne arrived at Green Gables.</p><p>“Would you like a cup of tea, Anne?” Marilla asks, setting a plate of shortbread next to Muriel’s place.</p><p>“Oh how I would love to but I must go tell Matthew about my essay!” Anne grabs a cookie and shoves it into her mouth, the essay fluttering in her hands as she pulls open the door and rushes outside.</p><p>Muriel laughs again and this time she turns her attention to Marilla.</p><p>“Her joy is infectious.”</p><p>“It certainly is.”</p><p>Marilla fills Muriel’s tea cup and one for herself, taking the seat next to hers. Her gaze wanders down to the way Marilla’s slender fingers curl around the handle of the cup, dainty and feminine and lined with years of hard work. She looks at her own and can’t help but see the similarities despite their difference in age. Errantly she wonders what other things they have in common, but she doesn’t want to come across as too forward.</p><p>“I’m sure your life has changed rather dramatically after adopting Anne.”</p><p>Marilla smiles again and it’s soft, slow and the fine lines around her eyes crinkle pleasantly.</p><p>“You know it occurred to me actually, in your class with the potatoes and the lightbulbs, that getting Anne was the current that lit up and brightened our whole lives.” Marilla’s blue eyes find and hold her gaze so earnestly that Muriel feels her cheeks burning anew.</p><p>“She’s a marvelous girl. Sure, her well-meaning nature can get her into all kinds of mishaps, and she’s spoken more words in this house than Matthew or myself put together in the whole history of Green Gables. But she has also brought us such unimaginable happiness that neither of us knew we were missing.”</p><p>Muriel feels tears prickling in her eyes and she blinks but finds her vision only growing cloudier instead of clearing.</p><p>“That is a beautiful thing to hear, Ms Cuthbert.”</p><p>“Oh you must call me Marilla.”</p><p>“Yes, of course, Marilla.” Muriel touches just below her eyelash to collect a tear threatening to roll down her cheek. “It is inspiring to know how much love exists within your family. You are all very fortunate to have one another.”</p><p>Marilla smiles, “I do feel that way as well. We might not be rich of purse like others, but we have wealth in other ways.”</p><p>“The ways that matter.”</p><p>Muriel can feel Marilla’s gaze still upon her and she tries to think of something to say but Marilla is the first to speak</p><p>“I’m sure you had that same happiness with your husband.” It’s spoken carefully, like Marilla is dipping her fingertips in the water to test if it’s warm, not willing to push or to make her feel uncomfortable. She’s glad of it, and yet she’s also glad that someone is asking.</p><p>“He was a very fine man and we were very happy together. I regret that we were not married for long before his illness but I suppose I am thankful that we were fortunate enough to have it at all.”</p><p>Muriel doesn’t even know the tears have fallen until Marilla reaches out and touches her cheek with a cupped palm. The reaction seems instinctive on her part, and the older woman retracts it as soon as she realizes what she’s done. Muriel finds herself missing the touch immediately but settles for the small lace handkerchief that Marilla takes from the sleeve of her blouse and hands to her.</p><p>“Oh I’m sorry to be so emotional, I really do enjoy talking about him, but some days I find it harder than others to do so.</p><p>Within Marilla’s tender and empathetic eyes, she finds a soothing comfort that she has been bereft of. She finds she needs it in just the same manner that the flowers growing along the Avonlea paths need sunshine. It warms her, and nourishes her and coaxes out the tears she’s kept so long at bay.</p><p>“You mustn’t feel sorry for sharing your emotion, not with me or anyone. It’s important to have friends you can speak with, to tell of the inner workings of your heart.”</p><p>Muriel blots her eyes on Marilla’s kerchief, sniffing quietly, knowing her cheeks will be red and blotchy and unpleasant looking.</p><p>“Thank you Marilla.” She takes a deep breath, and finds she can once again look back into the other woman’s eyes. “Do you have someone you can tell the inner workings of your heart to?”</p><p>Marilla opens her mouth to speak but then closes her lips together, her features contemplative. “I was going to say that I do have someone, a lifelong friend in fact that you yourself are familiar with, but I don’t think you’d find it unkind if I said I didn’t feel totally comfortable expressing my every thought to her, lest I wish to hear the rights and wrongs of it returned.”</p><p>Muriel can’t help but laugh, tears of mirth replacing those of sorrow, “Ah yes, Mrs. Lynde.”</p><p>Marilla fakes her shock. “However did you know?”</p><p>“It was merely an uneducated guess.”</p><p>Marilla reaches out a cool hand, her fingers soft as they close over Muriel’s, reassuring and supportive.</p><p>Muriel turns her hand so that she is holding Marilla’s in her own, their fingers entwined. “Marilla I would like you to know that you have that friend in me. I can keep a confidence and I promise I have never been one to form opinions where they are not warranted.”</p><p>Muriel squeezes gently, watches Marilla’s smile return, and something else, an expression she’s yet to see before now. There is a quiet in the room, but it is not unnerving. It feels safe. It feels as though they can sit this way forever. Just the two of them, hands joined and blue eyes meeting in differing shades for eternity.</p><p>Muriel’s thumb brushes across Marilla’s skin and it feels the most natural and intimate thing in the world. She’s aware of her heart beating, quicker than before, can feel the expansion of her ribs as she pulls a deep breath low into her diaphragm. She notices pink appearing high on Marilla’s cheekbones, and can see words silently forming on her lips.</p><p>Then the door rattles open loudly, altering the atmosphere, as Anne comes through it with Matthew in tow.</p><p>Muriel feels Marilla’s hand quickly refract from hers and she stands abruptly, patting down where an apron might be were she to be wearing one in the first place.</p><p>“Ah Matthew let me get a cup for you. Miss— Muriel, is staying for tea.”</p><p>Muriel looks towards Matthew and offers a friendly smile and he to her, bowing his chin in a nod.</p><p>“Unfortunately I’m afraid I cannot stay any longer. I’ve three more students to visit before I lose the light of day.”</p><p>Muriel stands and steps back from the table, trying not to notice how crestfallen Anne becomes, or the way Marilla’s hands momentarily still while reaching for a cup off the shelf.</p><p>“Marilla, thank you for hospitality and for that delicious rose tea. Matthew, Anne,” Muriel dips her chin to both and offers them a smile, “I will see you all in church tomorrow. Good afternoon.”</p><p>Muriel leaves before too much fuss can be made or any further excuses need to be presented. She can feel her heart hammering away and she feels nauseous like something has shifted irrevocably.</p><p>It was so silly, such a small little movement, such a large risk.</p><p>She walks quickly down the steps of the porch and along the path to the gate and when she feels she is safely out of view, her speed picks up and she runs the rest of the way home, collapsing breathlessly on the bottom stair.</p><p>What on earth did she think she was doing?</p><p>“Muriel Stacy,” she whispers to her empty house, “you are a foolish woman.”</p><p>—</p><p>On Sunday, Muriel doesn’t go to church.</p><p>Instead she takes a long walk down a few paths she’s not yet ventured on. After an hour or so, she finds herself in an orchard of white flowering apple trees and decides it’s as good a place as any to stop and read for awhile.</p><p>She nestles herself down with her back to one of the tree trunks and pulls her book out of the bag around her shoulder. It’s such a calm place and there isn’t a sound beyond that of nature and the birds flitting from branch to branch above her. She brings her knees up to her chest and flattens her book upon them, losing herself in the contents of its pages until the sun starts to set and the boughs of the trees above are bathed in gold.</p><p>Muriel gathers her things and stands, reaching up to run her hand along the tree bark, watching as several white petals float along the air to rest in the grass.</p><p>Only as she makes the journey home, does she allow herself to think about the previous day’s events. The way Marilla’s hair smelled of lavender, the way the feeling in the room had changed so subtly and yet so exponentially in mere minutes. She can hardly make sense of it, but there’s one thread that runs through it so intrinsically that she worries if she pulls on it, even gently, it will unravel. But she does pull on that thought, does let the realization dawn on her, that the only other time she’d felt the way she had on the previous day with Marilla, had been with her husband when she’d realized she had romantic feelings for him.</p><p>She freezes on the path, her body rigid, the breathless feeling of before returning to her full-force. She feels dizzy, and lightheaded. She unfastens the top buttons of her blouse, tries to get air and finds herself swaying. She knows she’s close to the house and if she can just get inside and lay down, she can really think about things more clearly and rationally.</p><p>Blotches of black fill her vision and she pulls a deep breath into her lungs but it does nothing to stop her from slowly losing consciousness and falling against the grass beneath her feet.</p><p>—</p><p>“Muriel.”</p><p>She can feel, on the edges of her periphery that someone is with her, though she can’t see them just yet, can only make out shadows and light, a brilliant mix of shapes and color.</p><p>She feels at once frightened, unsure as to what’s happened, until her vision begins to clear and her heart stops hammering so loudly in her ear.</p><p>“Muriel, that’s it, there you go.”</p><p>Muriel recognizes the voice before she sees her. Knows immediately that it’s Marilla. However, how she’s managed to wind up at Marilla’s she doesn’t understand. She wonders if her mind is playing tricks on her, that perhaps she’s merely dreaming.</p><p>Finally, she can see clearly, can see Marilla’s face hovering before her own, as she blinks back the last vestiges of her weariness. She can feel the ground beneath her, a few blades of grass between her fingers. She tries to sit up.</p><p>“Careful now,” Marilla’s voice is comforting and calm but Muriel thinks she sounds worried too.</p><p>“Oh, I … Marilla? What are you—“</p><p>“I was… well we were all worried when we didn’t see you in church today so I came over to check on you and bring you some Sunday supper.” Marilla’s hand is at her shoulder and she’s helping her to stand, with another hand near the small of her back. Muriel holds on to her forearm, finds her footing slowly but she feels weak from fainting.</p><p>“I see my worry was not misplaced. I got here only a few minutes ago but you were lying here in the grass. You gave me such a fright I was going to go for Matthew and the carriage.”</p><p>“I’m,” Muriel swallows when she feels Marilla’s arm circle her waist as she walks slowly beside her steadying her, “I was…”</p><p>Suddenly she feels as though she needs a story to tell. Can she really try to explain how the dawning of her innermost feelings, took the wind right from her and made her faint like some lovelorn debutante at a ball? Surely that would make no sense.</p><p>“I didn’t feel quite myself.” A half-truth then, it is. “I thought I would get some air but perhaps I should have given myself time to… recover before doing so.”</p><p>“You look ghostly pale. You must take care, walk slowly and I’ll help you to bed.”</p><p>Marilla sweetly holds her against her side and Muriel feels her stomach flutter. She flattens her palm to quell it and moves along beside the other woman until they’ve made it inside the house.</p><p>“Is your room upstairs?”</p><p>“Yes,” Muriel says pitifully, knowing it means that she will have to climb each step with Marilla’s slender form at her side, arm still nestled around her lower back. She feels like she is in some way taking advantage, wishes now that she could have just told her the truth but it’s too late now.</p><p>She pulls a steadying breath into her lungs as they make their way to the second level of the house and into her bedroom. Marilla is careful with her and Muriel can’t help but feel thankful for the level of attention the older woman gives her, taking care to plump her pillows so that her head doesn’t meet the wood of the headboard.</p><p>Marilla sits beside her on the bed, reaching out to place those same cool and soft fingertips against her forehead. Then presses the back of her hand there, seems to muddle over whatever results she believes she has found.</p><p>“You don’t have a fever, that is very good news.”</p><p>“No,” Muriel agrees. “It isn’t a fever. Feels more like a head cold really.”</p><p>“There’s certainly fortune in that. Now you must stay in bed, I brought you some of our Sunday supper, but that’s just chicken, potatoes and biscuits. I suppose a soup would be better suited, had I known.”</p><p>“Marilla, that’s perfectly alright.” Muriel smiles and pats the back of Marilla’s hand reassuringly. Her fingers linger again, a fraction longer than they should and a flash from the day before sparks in her memory and resonates low in her belly. Muriel looks away, clears her throat.</p><p>“You know I wasn’t feeling myself yesterday either. I’m sorry if I acted in any way… strange at your home.”</p><p>Marilla’s brows knit in concern and her shoulders round slightly, as though she’s cottoned on to the moment she meant.</p><p>“I didn’t think you seemed out of character,” Marilla answers gently. “I’m sure Anne will have kept you there all day if she could. It was probably best you were able to get away while you were able.”</p><p>Or perhaps there hadn’t been a moment at all. At least not from Marilla’s perspective.</p><p>“Ah yes, well there are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than with a pupil with a large imagination and a thirst for education."</p><p>“You’re awfully good to her.” Marilla’s voice is soft and sincere, and even here in her bedroom it doesn’t feel intrusive.</p><p>“She’s easy to be good to. You are all so very kind to me.</p><p>“You make it easy to be kind.”</p><p>Marilla’s hand finds hers and Muriel’s breath hitches when she feels Marilla’s fingers finding their place, entwined with her own.</p><p>--</p><p>Several days pass but Marilla never stops insisting she make every meal for Muriel.</p><p>Despite the fact that Muriel has attended school every day of the week and not been even the slightest bit ill, Marilla arrives at her home before sunset each day to deliver a basket filled with provisions.</p><p>“Now Marilla, while I do enjoy your company, I feel the need to reassure you that I am perfectly capable of preparing my own supper.”</p><p>An expression passes briefly across the older woman’s face and Muriel fears she has offended her, but Marilla hands her the basket with a tight-lipped smile.</p><p>“Well it’s best you take this one or it will go to waste.”</p><p>“Marilla I didn’t mean—“</p><p>Marilla lifts a hand and waves it dismissively, “No I understand. Perhaps it has been a little forward of me. I criticized Rachel for doing the very same thing, and here I go showing up routinely unannounced.”</p><p>Muriel steps forward and extends her hand, closing it over Marilla’s forearm, “You must never feel a burden. Not with me. It gives me a great amount of delight to have you call on me. I just don’t want you to feel you must go to all this trouble in order to do so.”</p><p>Marilla’s smile softens and Muriel sees the subtle way in which her shoulders relax. She squeezes her arm again reassuringly, “It would please me if you’d join me for supper this evening, if you’ve yet to take yours.”</p><p>Marilla nods her head wordlessly and follows Muriel inside the house. Muriel pulls the cheesecloth off of the basket and begins to unpack all of Marilla’s delicious food, placing it on to plates.</p><p>From the corner of her eye she can see Marilla standing a little awkwardly by the table.</p><p>“Please make yourself comfortable.”</p><p>Marilla looks up quickly as if drawn from thought, and she unfastens her hat pin, hanging her hat on the small hook nearby, then settles into a chair at the table.</p><p>Muriel sets the plates and cutlery in front of two chairs and takes the seat next to Marilla, “This smells positively divine. Thank you for bringing it to me.</p><p>Marilla smiles shyly. “It wasn’t any trouble. I just make a little extra. It’s similar to when we had boarders…”</p><p>Muriel knows about the boarders. She’s heard the story plenty of times from the children in her class and has overheard the odd discussion in church. She knows Marilla blames herself for their presence, for what they did to the town.</p><p>“I heard about them.”</p><p>Muriel can see Marilla tense immediately. “It was one of my graver errors in judgement.”</p><p>“Not at all, from what I gather from the people of this town, you helped them to learn a very valuable lesson; Not to be careless with one’s trust.”</p><p>Marilla’s sighs gently. “Perhaps that is so, but it was a lesson I had to learn myself.”</p><p>“I thought you never bought into the gold claim.”</p><p>“I didn’t.” Marilla’s brows knit together, her cheeks coloring the same as they had before. “Nate, one of the boarders, he manipulated me into — well, I was so foolish. He had me believing that I was somehow, suddenly, an attractive and alluring woman, not an old spinster...”</p><p>“Well this Nate might not have been an honest character, but for what it’s worth Marilla, I assure you, you are an attractive and alluring woman.”</p><p>Muriel’s eyes meet Marilla’s briefly until the clatter of Marilla’s fork against the plate interrupts them.</p><p>She clears her throat and takes it back up into her hand.</p><p>“I’m not so vain as to give such matters much weight, but it was disconcerting anyways, to feel played a fool.”</p><p>Muriel presses her lips together as she watches Marilla move the food around her plate, and places her own silverware down quietly.</p><p>“I have not known you very long,” she says earnestly, “but even in the short time that I have made your acquaintance, and have come to consider you a friend, not even for a moment do I believe that you, Ms. Marilla Cuthbert, could ever be played a fool. Taken advantage of, perhaps, but there is no foolery in that.”</p><p>“You’re wise and careful. The latter is not something I’d ever had much of a mind to be. Now having known you, I feel I can only hope to learn some of those qualities from you, for you are anything but an ‘old spinster’. You are a kind, intelligent woman and you are an inspiration in character to both that adoring, adventurous girl of yours, and to me.”</p><p>Marilla’s eyes are pink and watery and Muriel instantly feels she’s gone a step too far. “I hope you will not think that too intrusive to say. Again, I warn you Marilla, that there are times when I have much in common with a certain redheaded young lady that we both hold dear. Neither of us have the instinctive ability to keep our innermost thoughts from spilling out, especially when we feel them very certainly.”</p><p>Marilla reaches up and touches her own cheek and Muriel notices that her fingers are trembling. “I don’t believe anyone has ever spoken so plainly to me before, or with such compliment.”</p><p>Muriel smiles, but doesn’t add anything else. She realizes she’s probably said more than enough.</p><p>They eat their meal together in mostly companionable silence and then Marilla re-fastens her hat and takes up her emptied basket.</p><p>“I suppose I will see you at next week’s service?”</p><p>Marilla steps out into the evening air, the sun filtered through the trees as darkness begins to creep across the pastures and fields around them.</p><p>“Of course,” Muriel smiles and walks alongside Marilla along the path towards the road.</p><p>The taller woman stops abruptly as they reach the end of it and she turns to Muriel, concern etching across her features, “I like spending time with you.”</p><p>“I enjoy my time with you,” Muriel says in return, feeling their proximity almost electrifying to her senses.</p><p>Marilla looks uncertain, as if she wants to say something, but struggles to find the words and Muriel can relate to the confusion because she feels the very same. It’s as if this moment carries a great significance and importance but whatever that is, it cannot be named.</p><p>Grasping at the fleeting moment before it slips away, Muriel stammers, “Would you come walking with me, this Saturday?”</p><p>Marilla looks relieved, her mouth spreading into a radiant smile that stuns Muriel to look at. She feels a sudden pride at having earned that smile herself. Something she has said, that she has proposed, has caused Marilla to share that smile with her.</p><p>Muriel’s own smile brightens in tandem when Marilla nods, “I would love to.”</p><p>“I look forward to it.” Muriel’s fingers twitch and she wants to reach out and smooth down the fine hairs at Marilla’s temples, but she uses whatever small amount of self-control she has managed to retain and she steps back, crossing her arms over her stomach.</p><p>“Take care on the walk home.”</p><p>Muriel watches as Marilla makes her way down the road, eventually swallowed up behind the trees that surround the property. She lays her hand on her heart and tries to calm her pulse.</p><p>--</p><p>On Saturday morning, Muriel pulls apart her wardrobe trying to find something to wear. She actually puts her corset on and laces it halfway before changing her mind. She puts on several different dresses and studies her reflection in the large six-paned window of her bedroom, but doesn’t like any of them.</p><p>Ordinarily she doesn’t give a fig for how she looks around others but for some reason it matters to her today. She knows how foolish she’s being; Her first impressions have already been made. She has seen Marilla through every season at this point, the other woman probably knows each article of clothing she owns, but still she just feels some kind of desperation for everything to go well.</p><p>Then she remembers when Marilla had come with Rachel to her home when she’d first arrived in Avonlea. She recalls the way Marilla had looked at her with what appeared to be fascination when she’d spoken of the trousers she wore and how comfortable they were.</p><p>Muriel smiles and wriggles out of the lace and boning of her dress and pulls on her husband’s old shirt, and tucks it into a pair of fitted trousers. She’s fastening the top button of her vest when she hears the knock at the door.</p><p>Muriel quickly looks back at her reflection, nodding in satisfaction to herself, before rushing down the stairs and pulling the door open.</p><p>Marilla’s hair is styled a little differently today, no longer in the rather severe bun she often wears, but instead loose and waved to the side.</p><p>“You look lovely,” Muriel smiles, “that style of hair pinning really suits you.”</p><p>“Oh, well, thank you,” Marilla’s hand self-consciously pats at the back of her hair and she glances down at Muriel’s outfit. “You look quite fine yourself. I imagine that will be the very height of women’s fashion in several years. I dare say you will lead the pack there.”</p><p>Muriel grins and closes the door behind her.</p><p>--</p><p>They wander through the forest and down into some nestled valleys in Avonlea, places that Muriel likes to stop by on her own whenever she has a mind to take in some fresh air. And it is no accident that Muriel changes their course when the sun is overhead, to travel towards the expanse of white blossoming trees she is enchanted with.</p><p>The white petals have begun to fall and they float down around them from the thick ivory canopies above.</p><p>“This is my favorite place in all of Avonlea,” Muriel takes a few quick steps ahead and twirls back around with her arms outstretched. “Have you ever seen anything as lovely as this?”</p><p>Marilla’s eyes meet hers and for a moment she doesn’t say anything, just allows a smile to lift the corners of her mouth. Marilla glances upwards and lifts her hands to capture some of the blossoms.</p><p>“We used to play here as children,” Marilla spreads her fingers and allows the petals to float free from her hand. “Anne calls it, ‘The White Way of Delight’,” she finishes with pride.</p><p>Muriel laughs softly, “I can’t imagine a better name for it. I believe I shall call it that too.”</p><p>The afternoon outpaces them and once again the gold tendrils of a slow sinking sun remind them that the day is coming to an end.</p><p>They are sitting next to each other, their shoulders meeting as they lean against the base of an apple tree. Both of their laps are filled with fallen white petals and Marilla is twirling a small fallen twig, decorated with some green leaves and white flowering buds.</p><p>“I suppose we must get on home,” Muriel says regretfully, though she wishes the day would never come to an end. Spending a whole peaceful afternoon in quiet conversation with a remarkable woman like Marilla, has starved her for more.</p><p>Marilla tils her chin towards Muriel and reaches up to gently thread the end of the twig through the side of Muriel’s pinned hair.</p><p>“There,” she says with a warm smile, as if there was no home to go to, no beginning, nor end to time.</p><p>Muriel’s eyes flit between Marilla’s and she is filled with an overwhelming desire that flutters like a kaleidoscope of butterflies inside of her.</p><p>She reaches up and runs her fingers by the tip of Marilla’s ear, nestling them for the first time against her soft hair. Her gaze only briefly drifts to follow the path of her fingers before finding its way back to the sky-blue depths of Marilla’s eyes. She can’t read her expression, can’t fathom if it’s right or wrong, but there’s a chance and she takes it.</p><p>Her nose brushes against the side of Marilla’s as she presses her lips tenderly to the other woman’s.</p><p>Time, which has always managed to drag her along in protest, finally relents and there’s a suspension. In all the world, throughout the ages, there has been nothing before this moment and perhaps nothing will ever come after. If the whole of her life was in honor of only this, she would know her own existence was intrinsic and everlasting.</p><p>She withdraws her lips only briefly, her eyelashes drifting open to look into Marilla’s face for reassurance, to know that she has not taken something she would not be given of Marilla’s own accord. Marilla merely sways forward into her and captures her mouth again. Muriel feels the butterflies take flight within her, their wings tickling her ribs as her lips part and her free hand finds its place on Marilla’s thin waist, just over the ridges of her belt.</p><p>Their kiss is like poetry, something Muriel is sure she’s read about when the poet talks of fanciful notions such as ‘true love’ and ‘eternal passion’. She’s never really known it to be true before, not with her husband even, whose company she thoroughly enjoyed. There is something different here, not unlike the ‘kindred spirits’ Anne speaks of in class, yet even still there is something in this feeling that lays to waste all words that try to name it.</p><p>Whatever it is, it exists only between herself and Marilla, an unbridled passion galloping across the cliff sides of Cavendish and over its edge, taking flight, never falling.</p><p>Her fingers thread deeper into Marilla’s hair and she feels the pins coming loose, her long rich chestnut curls cascading across the skin of Muriel’s wrist. She can feel Marilla’s hand at her elbow, squeezing just gently as it drifts higher to her shoulder and caresses the collar of her blouse and Muriel allows her tongue to graze across Marilla’s soft lips, tasting the other woman which is as essential to her now as breathing.</p><p>“I have to get home,” Marilla eventually mumbles against her mouth, lips moist and reddened from kissing, “Anne and Matthew will worry.”</p><p>Muriel is breathless and her lips feel stained by Marilla’s like blackberries, soaking deep in her skin and she relishes it. Slowly she extracts her hand from Marilla’s hair which is now completely down and framing the right side of her face. Muriel doesn’t recall a time that the other woman seemed so relaxed and yet surging with life and energy, much like herself, over this change between them.</p><p>She helps Marilla to her feet, and dusts off her skirt, to clear it from stray grass and petals. Their hands meet and Muriel can’t help but thread their fingers together, tugging softly at Marilla’s hand as she begins to run towards the road through the trees.</p><p>The golden beams of light skirt between each planted tree as they run, and Muriel laughs freely because for once in her life everything makes sense. When she looks at Marilla, the breeze lifting her hair and whipping it around her shoulders and face, she feels adoration and tenderness and yes, most emphatically, she feels love.</p><p>--</p><p>Spring gives way to Summer and the days are longer. The approaching end to the school year keeps Muriel busy with lessons and teaching. She stays late to finish up with her lesson plans and to grade papers. Afterwards, she visits students having a particularly hard time that cannot otherwise be slated into the school day.</p><p>On several occasions she’s managed to spend time with Marilla, if even briefly while making an excuse to help Anne, who is in no need of her help, with school work. It isn’t the same as being alone with her, but Muriel still has that day in the White Way of Delight where she kissed Marilla Cuthbert under a canopy of lacy flowers.</p><p>It’s that memory that once again carries her down the path to Green Gables, a novel by Jane Austen clasped in her hand. She takes the steps quickly, can feel her pulse quicken just knowing that Marilla’s inside. Her knuckles rap gently against the door and she waits with some eagerness, a small apple branch laying across the top of the book, leafy and green as the white petals have all but disappeared for the season.</p><p>When Marilla appears behind the glass pane of the door, Muriel lifts the branch and smiles brightly.</p><p>Marilla’s smile, however, is absent.</p><p>“Ms. Stacy.”</p><p>Muriel’s own lips slacken at the sudden formality.</p><p>“Marilla,” Muriel answers, confusion evident on her face as clearly as the strain of concern squeezes her insides.</p><p>“Might I help you with anything?” Marilla asks, never quite opening the door wide enough for her to enter, as unwelcome as she has ever felt.</p><p>“I… well, I came by, to… well to lend Anne a book she wished to borrow and I had hoped,” Muriel swallows roughly, her mouth feels dry and bitter.</p><p>“I can pass it along.” Marilla extends her hand perfunctorily.</p><p>Muriel doesn’t move, instead she watches Marilla carefully, tries to decipher some clue as to her total change in demeanor.</p><p>“I hoped to see you, as well.” Muriel allows the hand holding the branch to lower, forgotten.</p><p>Marilla’s eyes are red and wide and their usual warmth is absent and in its place is a cold, lingering sorrow.</p><p>Muriel takes a step back. “Marilla, what has happened?”</p><p>Marilla shakes her head, “Everything is fine Ms. Stacy, but I am very busy and cannot stop to socialize. If you’d like to leave the book I’ll be sure Anne receives it.”</p><p>Muriel wordlessly offers the book to Marilla and feels the weight of it taken from her, but the rest of her is numb. She can feel her eyes tearing up, knows that she will not be able to hold back her emotion so she whispers a soft, “Good day then,” as she backs towards the steps, “Ms. Cuthbert.”</p><p>She drops the branch at her feet and walks with as much dignity as she can muster, as fast as she can towards the gate. Her mind is reeling, but she can’t catch hold of any one particular thought. She feels out of focus, her step falters as she is paying no attention to what she’s doing and she stumbles and falls forward to her knees in the dirt. The tears come freely and she’s glad of being alone, glad she won’t meet another soul as she runs through the woods towards her house, empty as it is.</p><p>When she closes the door behind her, sinking to the wooden floor of the hallway, she can’t find it in her heart to regret what she has come to know about herself and about her feelings for Marilla, but she wills every last one of them away.</p><p>--</p><p>The rest of the school year passes in a blur and before she knows it, two weeks have come and gone and it’s the very last day of class. She’s been distant with her students and she does regret that. She’s tried not to let it show but she cannot control the pain that upends her stomach and leads her thoughts near constantly astray. All she can think about is sky blue eyes and hair pins and the taste of her.</p><p>She talks very little beyond what is required for teaching and she can’t remember the last time she has authentically smiled. Getting by is the way of it now, no matter how hard she tries to return to normalcy.</p><p>After all of the students have made their way out of the classroom, heading in their varying directions home, Muriel begins the process of cleaning her desk and tidying the bits and pieces of her lessons that remain.</p><p>There’s a sound at the door and Muriel turns her head to find a willowy young, freckled redhead in the doorway.</p><p>“Anne, have you forgotten anything?”</p><p>“No, I … wanted to return the book I borrowed.” Anne enters her office and places the book down upon her desk. Muriel sees, stuck between its pages, the dried apple branch, and it brings unceasing tears to her eyes.</p><p>“Oh Goodness Ms. Stacy,” Anne steps forward and places her hand kindly on Muriel’s shoulder. She dries her eyes on her sleeve and sniffs unpleasantly.</p><p>“Anne, I am sorry. I must apologize, my emotions are rather beyond my control these days.”</p><p>“Is it to do with Marilla?” Anne asks quietly and Muriel’s face snaps up to look at her, eyes red and cheeks still wet with tears.</p><p>“I… well I…” For really, what is she to say to the child? She cannot speak her heart. Not now, certainly.</p><p>“I know what happened between you and I think it is my fault that everything is wrong,” Anne’s wide eyes well up with tears too and she falls miserably to the ground beside Muriel’s chair.</p><p>“No, no Anne, nothing is your fault.”</p><p>“Yes it is!” Anne says shrilly, looking up at her, “I saw you two… in the kitchen of Green Gables. I was coming inside from the stable and through the window I saw you kiss her. I thought it was beautiful, you both looked so happy, and - and- and I told her so and she grew very angry.”</p><p>Muriel remembers the exact moment, how she pressed Marilla back against the counter and blotted her mouth upon hers, in a chaste but sweet summer’s kiss.</p><p>“I see,” Muriel says cautiously.</p><p>“She used to be so happy when you were around. Even Matthew could tell a difference in her. She wore her hair differently, she smiled all the time. Everything was wonderful.” Anne sniffs unhappily. “Now she’s miserable. She hardly eats, she stopped baking… most of the time she just stands in the kitchen and stares outside. Matthew and I don’t know what to do. Why can’t you two just be together?”</p><p>“Oh Anne, I wish we could,” Muriel admits without any amount of restraint not to. She can’t hold it back anymore, feels relief in being able to speak about it, even if it’s inappropriate to do so with her student.</p><p>“Do you love her?” Anne looks so innocent, all doe-eyed, her nose red from crying, eyes shining glassy with tears.</p><p>Everything is easier in youth. She longs for the simplicity of it quite often, before all the rules both written and unwritten sat like traps ready to be sprung.</p><p>“Yes,” she admits quietly, looking down into Anne’s clear eyes, “Yes I love her very much.”</p><p>“Well you have to tell her! Please Ms. Stacy. I can’t bear to see two people so destined to be together, being in the very depths of despair apart!”</p><p>“It isn’t that simple Anne,” Muriel says sadly, “I tried to speak with her and she did not wish to.”</p><p>“But didn’t you say Ms. Stacy, that adversities may challenge us but that it only makes our determination stronger?”</p><p>Muriel feels her lips twitch in a small smile, for she can never claim that her most intelligent student has not learned anything from her lessons.</p><p>“Who am I to deny my own words of wisdom?”</p><p>Anne jumps up and wraps her arms around Muriel’s neck, hugging her tightly, “Oh I’m so glad Ms. Stacy! Will you come with me now?”</p><p>Muriel glances towards the door. “Would it not be better to write and inquire when will be an appropriate time?”</p><p>“There is no time like the present!” Anne parrots the well-used words Muriel has already said a multitude of times in class.</p><p>“I see. Then I suppose we should go right away.”</p><p>Muriel gathers her hat and pins it into hair, adjusting her vest across the top of her skirt as she tries to calm and prepare herself.</p><p>If ever a thing were worth fighting for, she knows that Marilla Cuthbert is it.</p><p>--</p><p>When they arrive at Green Gables, Anne opens the gate for Muriel and leads the way on to the porch.</p><p>“Marilla!” She calls out to the quiet house as she opens the door and silently motions for Muriel to follow her inside.</p><p>There’s a shuffle in the kitchen and Marilla appears in the door, looking exhausted and sallow, the very way Anne had described her. She wonders if she looks the same, for she certainly feels it.</p><p>Her eyes are still red, she knows it, and she doesn’t care. She meets Marilla’s gaze straight on and all she wants to do is embrace her, to go back to the flowering apple trees and the golden rays of sunset.</p><p>Marilla looks stiff, unsure, like there’s a script she’s misplaced and she cannot recall what words to say.</p><p>“Marilla, I just came to tell you that…” she looks to Anne for reassurance as the young girl stands between them, hopefully. “What I mean to say is… that I care very much for you and I would like to speak with you, to see if we can put whatever has gone wrong, to rights.”</p><p>“I don’t know that there is anything to be put right.” Marilla answers sternly, but the sadness in her eyes, the way they catch the light, pooled with emotion, betrays her true feelings.</p><p>“Marilla!” Anne exclaims, “There is so much to be put right. You have your moment now. Like in Ms. Stacy’s book! You’re Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars,” she gestures wildly to Muriel, “has just come to ask for your hand in marriage. Would you reject such a romantical proposal?”</p><p>“Don’t be foolish Anne,” Marilla answers, though a sob catches in her throat and she covers her mouth with a trembling hand.</p><p>“Marilla,” Muriel says softly, taking a step closer to her, “I am no Edward, but what I am is someone who feels very fortunate to have come to know you as I have. I know that this circumstance is unusual, for I have felt that too -- questioned it, myself. But who am I to try and put words or a label on how I feel when I am with you?”</p><p>Muriel takes another step closer so that they are no longer a whole room apart, “I am a teacher without all the answers. But what I do know is that I have never felt this way about anyone before, and I can with certainty say that I am unlikely to feel it again with another.”</p><p>“I do know, that these feelings cannot be buried now that they have broken through and shown themselves, but I can say that your friendship is worth more to me than any of the rest. If it means that I can never speak those feelings aloud again, if they must remain separate and apart so that our friendship can be what it once was, then I will pledge to stay within those bounds.”</p><p>Marilla’s eyes lower and her hand stays pressed to her lips. Muriel can see the tears flowing down the older woman’s cheeks and she knows how private she is, how it must upset her to feel so vulnerable especially with her child not feet away with a vested interest.</p><p>“I feel, Marilla that I have said what I came to say. I miss you as my confidante and my friend, above all else. I know it will take time, if you even wish to be friends with me at all. But I want you to know that should you ever feel ready to do so, ever feel you are able trust me as a kindred spirit again, then I hope you will seek me out.”</p><p>Muriel looks towards Anne, whose hope is fading almost as quickly as her own. She forces a reassuring smile to the girl, “I am very grateful to know that your Anne, bright as she is, can speak the words of her heart so freely. It is far too often we do not say how we feel before it is too late. Today I learned from Ms. Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, that we must speak our truth, however difficult, for there is peace in knowing that nothing is left unsaid.”</p><p>Muriel swallows the lump in her throat as she knows she may never return to Green Gables again. That this time, standing in its walls, she can glance around and recall a time when gentle hands faintly touched beneath a dinner table, and lips met in the glow of a warm Summer’s afternoon.</p><p>She may not be able to make new memories, but the ones she has are hers to keep and they can never be taken from her. There’s at least some beauty in that.</p><p>She smiles between the two and gently, sadly, and quietly lets herself out.</p><p>--</p><p>Rain follows the sun, it always does, but Muriel likes the rain. It makes sunny days seem warmer to know that in their absence there is something else entirely. Rain nourishes the plants and flowers, makes everything around Avonlea green and lush.</p><p>It keeps her indoors, tinkering with mechanical parts in her kitchen, trying to fix her electric bicycle that has gone rusty from disuse. She longs to climb upon it and ride through the meadows, stretching seemingly to the ocean. When the suns return she thinks it will do her some good to get on it, to get away and help ease herself out of the pain that still clings to each day and night.</p><p>There’s a knock at her door and Muriel has to look up from her toolbox to see that the rain is still falling heavily outside. She wonders who has come all the way to her home in such weather and all she can think at first is that she won’t be able to stand it, if it’s Rachel. There are days when she can be kind and humoring but today does not feel like one of them.</p><p>She drops the hammer back into the wooden chest and wipes her hands down the front of her trousers. Taking a deep breath to ready herself with whomever she’ll be faced with, she opens the door and stops dead.</p><p>“Marilla?”</p><p>For there she is, standing on her step in the pouring rain, her coat soaked through.</p><p>“I had to come see you, right away.”</p><p>“Goodness what has happened? Please come in.” Muriel ushers the woman inside and fetches a blanket from the back of the rocking chair in her sitting room, bringing it back and helping it around her shoulders.</p><p>When she doesn’t answer, she asks again, “Marilla, what has happened? Is everything alright?”</p><p>“No it isn’t alright,” Marilla answers, and Muriel’s not sure if there are tears on her cheeks or if the rain has soaked through the rim of her hat as well.</p><p>“I was frightened I guess, I didn’t know what to say to Anne, what to say to anyone else. This is all so very new, and there’s no clear path… I thought, somehow I’d be making things harder on her, worst of all, and Anne needs stability.”</p><p>Muriel opens her mouth to speak but Marilla continues on, “Anne told me about her friend, Josephine Barry, Diana’s great Aunt, who spent her whole life with a woman she loved very dearly and it occured to me that I don’t want to go the rest of mine, not being with the one I love.”</p><p>Muriel’s face softens but she leaves Marilla space, and silence to speak her truth.</p><p>“I love you Muriel,” she says almost regretfully, “And I don’t know what that means for either of us, or where we go from here but I want to stop fearing whatever may or may not be lurking around the corner. I’ve spent my entire life caring for others and I have neglected myself. If you still feel… well as you do, then I just want--”</p><p>Muriel steps forward and slides her arms around Marilla’s waist, reaching up to kiss her.</p><p>The taller woman relaxes into her and Muriel is so elated, so absolutely filled with joy that she doesn’t even notice Marilla’s wet clothing saturating her own until it soaks through to her skin.</p><p>“Come,” Muriel whispers against Marilla’s mouth, “I have some dry clothes you can change into.”</p><p>Muriel takes Marilla’s hand in her own and leads her up the stairs towards her bedroom. She pulls open her wardrobe and rummages through for something that will fit the taller woman, but all the while can feel her standing so near and it takes everything not to abandon her quest and to kiss her again.</p><p>Marilla stops her, with a gentle hand on her forearm and Muriel looks at her curiously. It’s as if her innermost thoughts were spoken aloud, or perhaps Marilla can read her mind, for she brings her mouth back to Muriel’s and indulges in another lengthy kiss.</p><p>Muriel’s hand gently glides up Marilla’s waist, over the boning of her corset and gently caresses the swell of her breast, her fingers soft and somewhat trepidatious.</p><p>It has occured to Muriel that Marilla has likely never been with anyone intimately before. Marilla had told her, once, of a romance she shared briefly with John Blythe, chaste as it was when she was a young girl, then had spent her life unmarried. Perhaps there had been an affair, but Marilla had never spoken of it and Muriel thinks, given what she’s said, she’s likely to have never indulged.</p><p>Marilla’s mouth leaves hers and she is breathless, her cheeks red and it makes Muriel’s hand stop in its gentle motions.</p><p>“I don’t mean to rush you,” Muriel whispers into the air between them, “I am happy just the way we are.”</p><p>“I want to,” Marilla says rather abruptly, definitively, “I’ve gone my whole life waiting, I don’t want to wait, anymore. Not for anything.”</p><p>Muriel smiles, the butterflies ever-present as she reaches her fingers up to Marilla’s high buttoned collar, “May I?”</p><p>Marilla nods softly and Muriel’s fingers work delicately to slip each button through each hole down the front length of Marilla’s shirtwaist. She can feel Marilla’s clear eyes watching her, can almost hear the other woman’s heart beating as quickly as her own in the quiet room.</p><p>She gently pulls the fabric from Marilla’s waistband, each half moving away to reveal the faintly striped corset below.Her fingers trace its border and she gently touches the fabric of her chemise, transparent from the rain and reminiscent of the first time she saw Marilla washing her hair in the kitchen basin. She strokes softly over the thin material and watches as Marilla’s eyes darken, her breath catching in her throat.</p><p>Muriel pauses and looks into Marilla’s eyes, waits for the silent dip of her chin to acknowledge the unspoken question before dropping her hands to her waistband and unfastening her belt.</p><p>She lays it across the bench at the end of her bed, then reaches around Marilla’s trim waist to unfasten the buttons at the back of her skirt. It lowers easily under her hands and she helps Marilla to step out of it, noticing even her shoes and stockings are wet.</p><p>Muriel helps her out of each, coaxing Marilla to sit down on the bed before doing so, her hands running up the back of her calves to catch the edge of the stockings beneath the trim of her bloomers and rolling it down each leg, one at a time.</p><p>Unwilling to make Marilla feel too vulnerable, she divests herself of her vest and trousers, laying all of their clothes together. Her blouse follows and then her own stockings until she stands in her chemise and bloomers, their state of undress matched, save for the corset that still laces and holds Marilla’s bosom and shapes her already slender waist.</p><p>Muriel lowers herself to the bed next to her and delicately unfastens the hooks from the front of Marilla’s corset with the care one would give something beloved but fragile, an irreplaceable heirloom. Still she watches Marilla closely, careful not to push past her private boundaries.</p><p>When it’s removed and laid to rest with the rest of their clothes, Muriel allows her hand to smooth over the wrinkled fabric of Marilla’s chemise, across her flat stomach and over her hip. Then with care, her palm drifts upwards and brushes across the tautness of Marilla’s rose colored nipple, that is only ever so faintly visible beneath.</p><p>Marilla gasps, her head canting to the side and her eyelashes slip closed. Muriel can’t help but place a featherlight kiss to the exposed column of her throat, and then another, dipping her head lower and lower until her mouth faintly touches Marilla’s collarbone and her tongue slips past her lips to taste her skin.</p><p>Marilla exhales slowly through her nose, a gentle moan cutting through the silence and Muriel smiles against her, each kiss braver than the last.</p><p>She guides Marilla back against the bed linens and slips her body closer until they are pressed flush together. She takes a moment to lift her hand and caress Marilla’s cheek, their eyes so easily finding each other. Without looking away, Muriel’s hand travels past Marilla’s breast, her fingertips trailing down her stomach, coming to a rest low on the older woman’s abdomen until with utmost care, it presses to the warmth nestled between Marilla’s thighs, thin cotton the only thing separating her fingertips from Marilla’s femininity.</p><p>Marilla’s head moves back into the plush pillow beneath her and Muriel marvels at how beautiful and unrestrained she looks. She watches her intently, amazed at the way her expression changes with each gentle touch from Muriel’s fingers as she explores. When Marilla’s breath catches in her throat, she knows to repeat her touch just so, pressing more firmly, making languid circles with her hand.</p><p>Muriel can feel an ache between her own thighs, her desire growing as she watches Marilla writhe beneath her touch. She is arching into her hand, her legs widened and wanting and Muriel quickly slips her wrist beneath the fabric of Marilla’s bloomers and glides her fingertips into the radiating heat of her.</p><p>The simple feeling of being so intimately joined with Marilla, her fingers tight within her impossibly soft folds, coated in the fruit of their coupling, draws a low moan from Muriel’s lips.</p><p>Marilla’s brows are knit together, her mouth open and gasping for breath but there is also the faintest quirk to her lips, a subtle reflection of her own happiness. Muriel can’t help but drop her chin, whispering tender words of love near the shell of her ear until Marilla cries out and tenses, her body rippling with the waves of pleasure as they course through her.</p><p>Muriel holds her tightly and when Marilla’s body finally relaxes against her, she kisses away a tear that rolls down Marilla’s temple.</p><p>Afterwards, laying boneless and breathless, their limbs intertwined, Muriel finds she is the happiest she has ever been. She loves and she is loved in return and that feeling is so heady that she is drunk from it.</p><p>She drinks in the magic of it all, surrounded by the fragrance of lavender on Marilla’s hair as it cascades across her pillow and the calmed by the rain pattering softly on the rooftop above.</p><p>--</p><p>Muriel is sitting in the kitchen of Green Gables, enjoying a cup of tea while she clips the stems of a bouquet that she’s gathered from the road and brought in as a gift to Marilla. She doesn’t feel the same way about flowers as she once did. No longer thinks of cut flowers as wilting or dying, but instead sees the delight in preserving beauty as it is and not letting it slip away, unnoticed or uncherished.</p><p>There’s a knock at the door and Marilla looks up from the pie crust she is kneading, smiles across at Muriel who gets up and goes to answer it for her.</p><p>“Good day Muriel, I’m just in to see Marilla for a moment.” Rachel Lynde breezes past her into the kitchen, “If Marilla remembers me, of course.”</p><p>Marilla chuckles softly, “Remember you? How could you let me forget?”</p><p>“Well, I would ask you the same question but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you in weeks, as you’ve been busy galavanting with your new friend here.” Rachel doesn’t look back at Muriel behind her but Marilla catches the younger woman’s eyes and she gives her a private smile.</p><p>“I wanted to come and invite you over to dinner next Sunday after Church, if you think you can find the time in your very busy schedule.”</p><p>Marilla glances with amusement at Rachel, “And is my friend here welcome to join us or is this a closed invitation?”</p><p>“Of course Muriel, you’re welcome to come along,” Rachel answers huffily as she reaches over and picks up a slice of peach from the bowl of pie filling.</p><p>“How kind of you Rachel,” Muriel answers behind her and crosses to stand at the shorter woman’s side, “but I wouldn’t want to impose.”</p><p>“Oh nonsense!” Rachel pops the peach in her mouth and chews and swallows it dramatically, as she does most things. “It would be our pleasure.”</p><p>“Then I shall be quite happy to accept.”</p><p>Rachel turns her head and studies Muriel through slanted eyes. “You know what they say Marilla, ‘<em>Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.</em>’”</p><p>“Is that what they say Rachel?” Marilla chuckles softly and balls up the dough between her flour covered hands, dusting them off on her apron.</p><p>“That is indeed what they say.”</p><p>Muriel smiles disarmingly at the shorter woman, “Well, I can promise you Rachel, I’ve never been much of a sword fighter myself.”</p><p>”See to it you keep it that way.”</p><p>--</p><p>
  <strong>End</strong>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Note: The trees in this story were originally Dogwoods. After some discussion with my darling friend Janie, and pulling up the actual passage about The White Way of Delight, I found that they were actually apple trees. My apologies to apple trees for any harm I may have caused. I didn't realize they were so damn pretty.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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